Dead Sea
The Dead Sea (Arabic: اَلْبَحْر الْمَيِّت, romanized: al-Baḥr al-Mayyit, or اَلْبَحْر الْمَيْت, al-Baḥr al-Mayt; Hebrew: יַם הַמֶּלַח, romanized: Yām hamMelaḥ), also known by other names, is a landlocked salt lake bordered by Jordan to the east and the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Israel to the west. It lies in the Jordan Rift Valley, and its main tributary is the Jordan River.
| Dead Sea | |
|---|---|
A view of the sea from the Jordanian shore with the hills of the West Bank in the background | |
Dead Sea | |
| Location | Western Asia |
| Coordinates | 31°30′N 35°30′E |
| Lake type | Endorheic Hypersaline |
| Primary inflows | Jordan River |
| Primary outflows | None |
| Catchment area | 41,650 km2 (16,080 sq mi) |
| Basin countries | Jordan, Palestine (Israeli-occupied West Bank), Israel |
| Max. length | 50 km (31 mi) (northern basin only) |
| Max. width | 15 km (9.3 mi) |
| Surface area | 605 km2 (234 sq mi) (2016) |
| Average depth | 188.4 m (618 ft) |
| Max. depth | 298 m (978 ft) (elevation of deepest point, 728 m (2,388 ft) BSL [below sea level], minus current surface elevation) |
| Water volume | 114 km3 (27 cu mi) |
| Shore length1 | 135 km (84 mi) |
| Surface elevation | −430.5 m (−1,412 ft) (2016) |
| References | |
| 1 Shore length is not a well-defined measure. | |
As of 2019, the lake's surface is 430.5 metres (1,412 ft) below sea level, making its shores the lowest land-based elevation on Earth. It is 304 m (997 ft) deep, the deepest hypersaline lake in the world. With a salinity of 342 g/kg, or 34.2% (in 2011), it is one of the world's saltiest bodies of water – 9.6 times as salty as the ocean – and has a density of 1.24 kg/litre, which makes swimming similar to floating. This salinity makes for a harsh environment in which plants and animals cannot flourish, hence its name. The Dead Sea's main, northern basin is 50 kilometres (31 mi) long and 15 kilometres (9 mi) wide at its widest point.
The Dead Sea has attracted visitors from around the Mediterranean Basin for thousands of years. It was one of the world's first health resorts, and it has been the supplier of a wide variety of products, from asphalt for Egyptian mummification to potash for fertilisers. Today, tourists visit the sea on its Israeli, Jordanian and West Bank coastlines.
The Dead Sea is receding at a swift rate; its surface area today is 605 km2 (234 sq mi), having been 1,050 km2 (410 sq mi) in 1930. Multiple canal and pipeline proposals, such as the scrapped Red Sea–Dead Sea Water Conveyance project, have been made to reduce its recession.